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What is Performance Testing?

Performance testing addresses the non-functional requirements of Software Quality.  Instead of determining if functional requirements are met, performance testing focuses on how well the functions performs under various conditions.  It can determine how fast a system performs under a particular workload.  It can also serve to measure quality attributes such as scalability, reliability, and resource usage.

Benefits of Performance Testing

• It demonstrates that the system meets performance criteria
• helps to determine bottlenecks in system
• cost benefits to find performance issues in early phases of development, as it is costly to later repair performance defects once system is released
• helps to understand capacity and resource requirements

Performance Testing tries to accomplish the following:

• Assess production readiness
• Evaluate against performance criteria
• Compare performance characteristics of multiple systems or system configurations
• Find the source of performance problems
• Support system tuning
• Find throughput levels

Types of Performance Testing

Stress Tests

• evaluates the system when stressed to its limits over short period of time
• if requirements state that a system should handle up to a specified number of usrs, this type evaluates system performance when all those users are active simulnateouly.
• this test is important for systems that usually operate below maximum capacity, but are stressed at certain times of peak demand

Volume Tests

• address the handling of large amount of data in the system
• make sure that the system reacts appropriately when data sets reach their maximum size
• large throughput

Configuration Tests

• these tests analyze the various software and hardware configurations specified in the requirements
• it evaluates all possible configurations to make sure that each satisfies the requirements

Compatibility Tests

• these are needded what a system interfaces with other systems
• find out whether the interface functions perform according to the requirements

Regression Tests

• required when the system being tested is replacing an existing system
• regression tests check to see if new system’s performance is at least as good as that of the old system

Security Tests

• ensures that the security requirements are met.
• test system characteristics related to availability, integrity, and confidentiality of data and services

Timing Tests

• evaluate requirements dealing with time to respond to a user and time to perform a function

Environmental Tests

• looks at the system’s ability to perform at the installation site / location

Quality Tests

• Evaluate the system’s reliability, maintainablity, and availablity
• include calculation of mean time to failure, and mean time to repair, average time to find and fix a fault

Recovery Tests

• address response  to the presence of faults or to the loss of data, power, devices, or services
• we subject the system to a loss of system resources and see if it recovers properly